In the heart of Port St. Lucie's Tradition Center for Innovation, scientists at the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies are researching diseases that touch the lives of so many Americans: Alzheimer's, cancer, pain, diabetes, drug addiction.

 

Despite the economic recession, the non-profit Torrey Pines Institute (TPI) has kept up this important work at its Port St. Lucie laboratory in the face of financial setbacks. That included the loss of federal grant funding that forced some other research institutes to close their doors during those lean years.

 

TPI, though, has successfully weathered the economic "bust," and its leaders say they are looking toward a brighter future with its headquarters firmly rooted right here in Port St. Lucie.

 

"We are very committed to Port St. Lucie," said Dr. Gregory Welmaker, TPI's president and Chief Operating Officer. "We came here for a purpose, and we are going to make this work. We are not going anywhere."

Along with Tradition Medical Center, TPI is an anchor for the Tradition Center for Innovation. The internationally recognized institute develops new methods of drug discovery and basic research into multiple sclerosis, diabetes, immunology, infectious disease, regenerative medicine, obesity, heart disease, cancer vaccines and pain management. It was recently the only Florida Institution to be made a part of the National Cancer Institute's  NExT program.

"Torrey Pines carries out research that is not just playing in the sandbox. It's research that is focused and targeted on ameliorating disease areas across the board," said its founder and CEO Dr. Richard Houghten.

Surviving in a tough economy

Besides its research, TPI also focuses on creating what Houghten describes as "broad, internationally useful drug discovery tools."  These "compound libraries" have attracted worldwide attention.

"We're using these to sell and partner with for-profits and non-profits because we have something they need, and it's unlike any other collection in the world," Welmaker said.

Those tools helped keep TPI afloat during the economic downturn, along with the decision to maintain realistic staffing levels. TPI has recently garnered headlines for not meeting job creation goals spelled out in its incentive agreement with the State of Florida.

"It's fiscal responsibility. Torrey Pines came with a contract with the state of Florida to hire so many people, but that was based on metrics set in 2006," Welmaker said. "It came to a point, with the collapse of the economy and loss of funding, that Torrey Pines had a decision to make: We could continue to meet the hiring numbers and make sure we abided by the state contract, or not. If we had chosen to meet those numbers, we would have closed our doors."

While some bio-technology institutes, have been forced to shut down during the recession, Port St. Lucie's Mayor Greg Oravec said TPI deserves credit for making appropriate adjustments in order to survive.

 

"Torrey Pines' ongoing survival and, even better, success in the face of the difficult headwinds  -- which have buffeted the biotech sector since it opened -- are the result of making prudent business decisions, like cutting expenses, right- sizing their organization and leasing out space to other users, rather than running the business off of a cliff in order to hit arbitrary job creation numbers that were conjured more than a decade ago under much different economic circumstances," Oravec said. "Rather than point a finger at Torrey Pines, we should give them a hand for making it where others have failed."

 

Torrey Pines envisioned as heart of jobs corridor

 

While TPI arrived in Port St. Lucie about 10 years ago, the road to getting here began long before that.

 

As Port St. Lucie developed in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, City leaders understood it needed economic development and job creation to sustain the local economy. The City annexed more than 5,000 acres west of Interstate 95, which created opportunities for more economic and commercial development.

 

There was a clear need for more employment and a more diversified job base tobenefit the entire City.  As a result, the City approved entitlements for the creation of a jobs corridor in Tradition (Southern Grove DRI) with its flagship project: Tradition Center for Innovation.  TPI is the heart of this 5-mile jobs corridor along I-95 in Tradition.

 

 It was a collaborative effort of the State, County and City to recruit TPI to Port St. Lucie. The City agreed to fund the construction of the 100,000 square foot lab and offices in the Tradition jobs corridor. Like a homeowner would do to construct a home, the City borrowed $45.6 million to pay for the construction of this facility.

 

To repay that debt, the city agreed in 2006 to use revenue generated from its public building/economic development impact fee.  An impact fee is a one-time charge on new construction, not existing property owners, used to fund improvements needed to accommodate new development. New development was supposed to pay for much-needed economic development. The revenue from this impact fee is what is used to repay the debt on the Torrey Pines facility.

 

At the time this impact fee was put into place, in 2006, the City was experiencing a much different economic climate. The City's planning department projected that between 2005 and 2030, the number of dwelling units in the City would increase from52,813-to-139,394. This was a total gain of 86,581, and it represented an annual average  increase of 3,463 dwelling units per year. Based on the Planning Department estimates, the total increase in residential units over a ten-year horizon was 34,630. 

 

About 1,000 homes needed to be built each year in Port St. Lucie to generate enough public building impact fees to cover the annual debt payment.  At the time this was approved, in the calendar year of 2006, 3,623 new homes were built in the City.

 

Unfortunately, the Great Recession hit and new home construction dramatically dropped. In fact, in 2011, only 156 new homes were built in Port St. Lucie. The revenue generated by the public building impact fee could not cover the annual payment. That's why the City's general fund had to step in to cover a portion of that debt on the TPI laboratory in 2010 with what is essentially a loan.

 

In recent years, however, the City has begun to recover from the real estate bust, and the loan draw has shrunk each year since fiscal year 2012-2013. Home building in the City has picked up pace during the past two years and is on its way to returning to pre-boom historic levels. When the public building impact fee revenue is higher than the debt service payment, City Council will have the opportunity to use it to repay the loan from the general fund.

 

"It was a loan. As now we're in the recovery here, we're a city on the rise, that loan can be re-payed," Oravec said.

In the meantime, Oravec is positively optimistic about Torrey Pines' future in Port St. Lucie.

 

"Torrey Pines, the PSL start-up, survived a depression. Imagine what it will do in a growing economy with the wind at its back.  Now that's a story," Oravec said.